The Brutal Telling (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #5)

Gamache and Beauvoir looked around. Down a winding well-worn path they found an outhouse. The thought almost made Beauvoir gag. The Chief opened the door and looked in. He scanned the tiny one-holer, then closed the door. It too was clean, though spider’s webs were beginning to form and soon, Gamache knew, more and more creatures and plants would invade until the outhouse disappeared, eaten by the forest.

“How did he wash?” asked Beauvoir as they walked back to the cabin. They knew he had, and regularly, according to the coroner.

“There’s a river,” said Gamache, pausing. Ahead sat the cabin, a tiny perfect gem in the middle of the forest. “You can hear it. Probably the Bella Bella, as it heads into the village.”

Sure enough Beauvoir heard what sounded strangely like traffic. It was comforting. There was also a cistern beside the cabin, designed to catch rainfall.

“We’ve found fingerprints.” Beauvoir held the door open for the Chief as they entered the cabin. “We think they belong to two different people.”

Gamache’s brows rose. The place looked and felt as though only one person lived here. But judging by events, someone else had found the cabin, and the man.

Could this be their break? Could the murderer have left his prints?

The cabin was growing dimmer. Morin found a couple more lamps and some candles. Gamache watched the team at work. There was a grace to it, one perhaps only appreciated by another homicide officer. The fluid motions, stepping aside, leaning in and out and down, bowing and lifting and kneeling. It was almost beautiful.

He stood in the middle of the cabin and took it in. The walls were made of large, round logs. Strangely enough there were curtains at the windows. And in the kitchen a panel of amber glass leaned against the window.

A hand pump at the sink was attached to the wooden kitchen counter, and dishes and glasses were neatly placed on the exposed shelves. Gamache noticed food on the kitchen counter. He walked over and looked, without picking anything up. Bread, butter, cheese. Nibbled, and not by anything human. Some Orange Pekoe tea in an open box. A jar of honey. A quart of milk sat opened. He sniffed. Rancid.

He motioned Beauvoir over.

“What do you think?”

“The man did his shopping.”

“How? He sure didn’t walk into Monsieur Béliveau’s general store, and I’m pretty sure he didn’t walk to Saint-Rémy. Someone brought this food to him.”

“And killed him? Had a cup of tea then bashed his head in?”

“Maybe, maybe,” murmured the Chief Inspector as he looked around. The oil lamps threw light very unlike anything an electric bulb produced. This light was gentle. The edges of the world seemed softer.

A woodstove separated the rustic kitchen and the living area. A small table, covered in cloth, seemed to be his dining table. A riverstone fireplace was on the opposite wall with a wing chair on either side. At the far end of the cabin was a large brass bed and a chest of drawers.

The bed was made, the pillows fluffed and ready. Fabric hung on the walls, presumably to keep out the cold drafts, as you’d find in medieval castles. There were rugs scattered about the floor, a floor marred only, but deeply, by a dark stain of blood.

A bookcase lining an entire wall was filled with old volumes. Approaching it Gamache noticed something protruding from between the logs. He picked at it and looked at what he held.

A dollar bill.

It’d been years, decades, since Canada used dollar bills. Examining the wall more closely he noticed other paper protruding. More dollar bills. Some two-dollar bills. In a couple of cases there were twenties.

Was this the man’s banking system? Like an old miser, instead of stuffing his mattress had he stuffed his walls? After a tour of the walls Gamache concluded the money was there to keep the cold out. The cabin was made of wood and Canadian currency. It was insulation.

Next he walked over to the riverstone fireplace, pausing at one of the wing chairs. The one with the deepest impressions in the seat and back. He touched the worn fabric. Looking down at the table beside the chair he saw the whittling tools Beauvoir had mentioned, and leaning against the table was a fiddle and bow. A book, closed but with a bookmark, sat beside the tools. Had the man been reading when he was interrupted?

He picked it up and smiled.

“I had three chairs in my house,” Gamache read quietly. “One for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.”

“Pardon?” said Lacoste, from where she was crouching, looking under the table.

“Thoreau. From Walden.” Gamache held up the book. “He lived in a cabin, you know. Not unlike this, perhaps.”